Translator now and then

TRANSLATORS NOW AND THEN
HOW TECHNOLOGY HAS CHANGED THEIR TRADE

By Luciano O. Monteiro

FOREWORD

This article is an adaptation of a presentation I made to Unisinos undergraduate students in São Leopoldo, Brazil, in 2006. Its intended audience are translation students or professional translators who have had little or no contact with CAT tools. The original article contained figureswhich cannot be shown on this page.

ABSTRACT

Over the past few years, translation as a trade has seen significant changes brought about by the advent of new technologies. In an industry that is growing dramatically in terms of revenues, more and more computer applications are being used in order to speed up work and provide greater effectiveness. Among the new technologies, the use oftranslation memories stands out, by which translators can take advantage of their previous work to avoid repetitive tasks and save time and effort. Such changes are also helping translators gradually increase their average income and get rid of the old stereotype of poorly paid professionals.
Keywords: translator, translation memory, computer-aided translation, CAT tools

COMPUTERS APPLIED TO TRANSLATIONEven in the face of so much opposition by old school translators, computers are now part of the trade. Whereas some professionals may prefer to work without modern devices, electronic aids are often an unquestionable asset, speeding up the process, providing consistency and preventing translators from relying on their “traditional” memory only, but rather introducing the idea of electronicmemories, or, in the current lingo, translation memories.

Whereas some electronic tools are very expensive software that may take years for one to learn, others are a mere reflection of old reference books in electronic format: dictionaries and glossaries.

It may be argued that a translator who relies on his memory only and carries out no research whatsoever is not a reliable professional. Atranslator is not expected to know everything in his subject matter, and even if he does –which is theoretically unlikely–, he is not expected to remember everything by heart. Thus reference materials have always been very valuable in the trade of translation.

However, there are at least two drawbacks to carrying out research in hardcopy reference material. The first of them is the time it takesfor the necessary information to be found. Even with well-organized catalogues, summaries and indexes, it may take quite a while for the right book to be found and for it to be browsed through until the information is found. Worse still, sometimes you may not even know exactly what you are looking for. Albeit at first seeming a bit nonsensical, this is very common when you have the feeling "youknew that word," but your memory is not serving you well. In that situation, simply looking at a pile of books makes you feel impotent and frustrated.

Another drawback is that no room will ever be enough for all the books you need. Even a translator who specialises in a very specific subject matter, such as tax law, will find it harder to store all his books and have them handy for consultationat any time – not to mention the fact that they will have to be bought or acquired somehow, which means touring a number of libraries and spending a lot of money in the process.
4.1. Electronic dictionaries and glossaries.

The advent of computers has minimised such drawbacks – or eliminated them altogether in some cases. A computer-based dictionary, for instance, is stored in a fraction of acomputer disk, which means all but nothing in terms of space. It still has to be bought, but an electronic version tends to be less expensive than a hardcopy dictionary because there are fewer costs involved: no paper, no shipping, no ink, etc. The translator will also need to spend considerably on computer storage space (i.e. hard disks, CD-ROMs or other similar devices) to be able to store all...